Day - Mountain Drew

3:00am WAKE UP for group Charlie for the last time in the bakery.  They arrived at the bakery and bagged the bread to sell. We then walked around the suburbs with Pastor Pete selling the Pandasal for two pesos for one piece. Then they arrived back for breakfast at 7:00am.   

Our food challenge started when we ate lugaw for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This dish is the local food that working families eat and depending on the income that depends on how thick the dish would be and whether it would just be rice or chicken and vegetables. We only had a single bowl each for breakfast, lunch and dinner to eat like the local Filipino’s. We all sat down at 7:00am and sang happy birthday to the oldie Drew. After breakfast we got changed into our work clothes and walked to iRC. It took us 10 minutes to walk there. Once we arrived we got straight into our rotations.  

We all started off with the construction and then broke off into groups with some continuing construction, others trying their hand at broom making and weaving. Unfortunately, there were 3 victims of sunburn today even though Mr Beacham gave us numerous warnings! In an emotionally challenging experience six of the guys and girls were asked to build a coffin for a local community man that passed away from sickness overnight. This is the sad reality of living in a community such as this as the locals only work for food and cannot afford plywood for a coffin.  The body was wrapped in a rug and but because the mountain people cannot afford cremations or funeral processions the body was buried in the afternoon within the grounds of the community.

Around 12:00pm we stopped and went to lunch and had another bowl of Lugaw. After lunch we got back into our work clothes and went to the sugar cane fields to harvest some of the sugar cane. We got to taste some and it was really sweet but tasted nothing like sugar. After we harvested some of the sugar cane with machetes (yes mum they let us have machettes!) we took the sugar cane to the truck and loaded it. We took photos of the group cutting down the cane and cleaning it.  It is really hard work and we found out that 90% of the islands people are employed to work the sugar cane fields at $3 a day, working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We got back into the bus and went back to the house and got into our basketball and volleyball uniforms and went down to the local school to play. The students were so excited to see us and we were paraded around the town and the school, then into the court to get ready for the games. The basketball game was really close, but we lost 42-43, the guys were up by two then the other team got a three point shot on the buzzer.   It was a great game with a solid effort by Evan, Rueben, Elliot, Nic and Matt who don’t normally play basketball.  After the game we took a group photo and traded shirts. The girls played volleyball; the game was close as well but lost 20-25, but it was a significant improvement on the previous game. After the games we mingled with hundreds and possibly thousands of students and made balloons animals and bracelet with pipe cleaners. We then  got back into the bus and headed back to house.

When we got back to the house we all had showers and sat down for dinner, dinner was like breakfast and lunch, a single bowl of Lugaw! After dinner, Mr Beacham had a huge surprise, BIRTHDAY CAKE!!! The cake was a chocolate one and everyone sang happy birthday again to Drew.

Matt and Drew

Drew: Hey everyone, missing you all and I’m looking forward to coming home and seeing you.

Matt: Hey family, having a fun time but starting to miss you can’t wait to be home xoxo

Rach: CONGRATULATIONS KRISPAN AND CODY SIMPSON!!!! WOOOO IM SO HAPPY FOR YOU GUYS AND I DON’T THINK I HAVE EVER SCREAMED SO LOUD FROM EXCITEMENT!!
HOW DID IT HAPPEN?! IS THE RING PRETTY?! TELL ME EVERYTHING PLEASE! I miss you all so much right now and really, really wish I could give you guys a massive hug!
Feel free to pick me up from the airport on Friday and tell me everything!!
I am so happy for you guys and love you so much!! Have the best time in Bali! xoxo